Yes, he is quite good but I can tell he is a native English speaker by his pronunciation of certain sounds and intonation at times.
As far as flow of speech, intonation, and so on, I think Dashan is much closer to “native”. This guy is just fluent. But then again, Dashan was a trained Xiangsheng performer…
For someone who claims to have reached “native level” after fluency at a little over 6 months of study over 30 years ago, and has been speaking at this “native level” for over 30 years since (only dealing with Mandarin and Cantonese), I would expect to hear more “native” Chinese. I hear fluency, but I don’t know what he means by native… He obviously made a distinction between them, whatever definition he means.
I think it’s fitting to this topic. Such a claim seems arrogant and insulting to the intelligence of learners who have put the time and effort in. Kind of like what ol’ Benny thought he could do in 3 months.
I don’t like sensationalist claims either, I would never aspire to native level nor ever claim it is attainable to the average learner. Benny’s Chinese mission was classic, I never had so much fun watching him bumping up against language learning realities. After that I kinda lost interest in his activities, but to be fair, it was difficult to top this Chinese mission, that was Benny at his best.
“He obviously made a distinction between them, whatever definition he means”
Yes. But I think “Native-level”, only have one crystal clear definition.
At least how I see it.
When someone is touching on that level, that also means a more or less full understanding of slang/idioms/swear words not to mention dialects. On top of that, all kinds of “home-made” variants, hybrids with other languages etc. Its even hard these days for a Native-speaker to mentain a Native-level (:
If your level is “native”, that doesn´t only mean you know xxx thousands of words, and that you can use them correctly, it also mean that you have used them (the words) in all kinds of situations. That you have created memories and life-experience, hope and frustration in that language. You have been interacting with other native speakers in a broad range of situations. You have been explaining yourself to others when you screw up big time, you have forgive others for hurting you, and you have comfort friends in middle of their sorrow. Until then, it would be more respectful, I think, to use “Advanced” or “C2+”. It’s good enough.
Agreed. I think near-native may be possible for a learner to achieve, but not native. I think you have to be extremely arrogant and a bit delusion to claim that accomplishment.
You really have to start from infancy and grow up with the language to be native. There’s sooo much life experience with a language that a native goes through and that a non-native can never compensate for.
To answer this topic, I don’t think it is offensive to native speakers for someone to say they’re going to achieve your level in half a year or whatever. It’s just laughable.
But to leaners of a target language who are years ahead of someone in study, it would be an insult to their intelligence for that person to claim they will surpass these more experienced learners in a ridiculously short amount of time.
Speaking of tone Nazis, I think I was being lenient when I said he doesn’t hit every tone. The native speaker in the room asked me to shut it off because he speaks well, but completely out of tune, like with almost everything. It’s not really a problem in communication, but if you’re gonna claim native level, you’ve gotta hit more tones than that! I’m personally okay with his level of fluency though. That’s what really matters, but it’s just the arrogance, to claim you speak on the same level as a native…
This is a good point. Even if you have mastered “the basics” in 21 days or 2 years, native still implies an immersion in a language that you just can’t get, even if you live in the country for 2 years. My cousin got married to a French man and twelve years later was frustrated that she was still a fish out of water. Native implies time and being part of the culture and employing the nuance and beauty of the language. It is deeper than being a “target language”.
In the computer IT field people who teach or blog on a computer language are set back by the 21 day mentality. One guy got it right when he said “Lean Java in 10 years”.
Back in the day you had Microsoft Certified System Engineers (MCSEs) who walked as Gods, at least in their eyes. Now the MCSE type certification is recognized as a BEGINNER certification. It certifies that one is prepared to enter the field.
I don’t know if I would call it offensive. To be honest with you, I skimmed through this thread so forgive me if someone has already said this. I think that this is more of a goal than anything else. When people say “Russian takes 5-10 years to master”, why would I try so hard knowing there was going to be just years of failure and slow growth?
I know language learning is a slow process, and I have sort of hit a plateau in my Russian studies. When I am actively studying at my university, I do not actively use LingQ, as I get plenty of practice in school. When I first start a new language, I look up other people’s methods, to make a mix of ways to learn. In my mind, I can take what I feel is the best from each method, and just make the ultimate method of language learning. I have not ever considered giving myself a set deadline as you have suggested about becoming fluent in a language. Sure, I have said “hmm this language is easy, what if I can speak fluent in like a year”, but realistically, I know this isn’t really possible.
Am I the tone nazi? I forget. I only watched a few seconds of this video; jumped to the middle somewhere. His “pause words”, like “um” and “'kay” sound very funny to me. But maybe we have different senses of humor. Less funny, but somewhat interesting was his trouble distinguishing “x” with “zh”. And as a tone nazi wannabe I’ll say I heard at least one over-the-top 4th tone.
Good point - if I just thought in terms of “5-10 years”, I wouldn’t bother either! I set myself a personal goal (a few weeks back) of being “conversational fluent” (not ‘fluent’ which implies mastery), in 1 year for Mandarin though - & without pressure. It’s more like your optimistic “what if I can speak fluent in like a year” idea. And look at Luca Lampariello who spends on average 2 years to learn 2 languages to a high level. (Though he said Mandarin would take him 3 years)
My idea of personal excellence isn’t to “sound like a native”, but rather, to express myself well, understand others and be understood by native speakers in my L2’s. And I’ll hang onto my sexy accent - haha!
Um, except it isn’t a a good point. Indonesian or Malay can take me 6 months to a year to learn. Doesn’t make me want to learn it. Alternatively, being afraid of the truth discourages you?
No, we are not saying that the “truth” discourages you. But how would you rather look at it, “I can be somewhat conversational, and fairly comfortable with the language in a year” or someone saying it takes 5-10 years to be fluent?
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” If you think about the whole journey, you may never get started. But that first lesson, those first few hesitant steps? Those are doable.
Vocabulary can be misleading, too. A highly educated person will have a larger vocabulary and be more likely to use it correctly than a less educated person. But a less educated native speaker will still be “more fluent” in some ways than a highly educated learner.
Personally I don’t really think anyone who claims that could spend x-months/years in a target language and become a “native” on that language can really accomplish that. First language is quite different from second, third and so on.
We can learn a second language very well, speak very flawless and yet, we never can get as much language knowledge a real-native would have, specially because I think “native” implies not only in how many words you know. There are a lot of other things, active vocabulary, how, when and where to use the words you know, how you pronounce them, and also about things like regional or national culture you know about, the interaction between people from the country where that language is spoken, and many other things.
And that’s something that a real-native will always do better simple because he/she has spent more time there than someone who learned the language after adult. A real-native “live” the language since his/her day 1 from his/her life, so we can’t compare.
I know that maybe is not for all people, but as I’ve seen, most of those who claims “I can get as good as native in x-months” are arrogant people and they never really accomplish what they claim within the time they say they will do that.
But in the other hand, I do appreciate to hear someone who learn Portuguese (my native language) very well and is able to speak words and phrases correctly, regardless if they have a strong accent or not, I enjoy to talk and hear those people, the ones that could achieve that with hard work but not bragging themselves every minute of their lives.